ng crime, unemployment, and illiteracy (Williams, Whitehead, Rainwater & Murray, 1995, p. 33). It is the purpose of this paper to examine how feminist and Afrocentrist theories address these issues as well as to suggest additional ways that such schools of thought could be useful toward alleviating poverty in the Black community.
Research in African-American Studies has suggested that an Afrocentric worldview exists which is distinct from and in many ways opposed to a Eurocentric worldview (Collins, 1990a, p. 19). Patricia Hill Collins argues that, in general, scholarly social constructions of Blackness and race define these concepts as either reflections of quantifiable, biological differences among humans or residual categories that emerged in response to institutionalized racism (1990a, p. 19). On the other hand, even though it often relies on biological notions of the race, Afrocentric scholarship suggests that "Blackness" and Afrocentricity reflect long-standing belief systems among African peoples. While Black people were forced to adapt these Afrocentric belief systems in the face of different institutional arrangements of White domination, the continuation of an Afrocentric worldview has been fundamental to African-Americans' resistance to racial oppression (Collins, 1990a, p. 19). Thus, being Black encompasses both experiencing White domination as well as individual and group valuation of an independent, long-standing Afrocentric consciousness (Collins, 1990a, p. 19).
Afrocentrism is a social and cultural perspective that seeks to situate people of African heritage as active agents in human history (Asante, Date NA, Online). The perspective relies on a value system that is based on African civilization and philosophy that emphasizes humanity's oneness with nature, spirituality, and collectivism, which it argues is in direct contrast to the Eurocentric world view, which encourages controlling nature, materialism, and indi...